My husband, as well as myself, always refused to draw from our discovery any material profit. We have published, since the beginning, without any reserve, the process that we used to prepare the radium. We took out no patent and we did not reserve any advantage in any industrial exploitation. No detail was kept secret, and it is due to the information we gave in our publications that the industry of radium has been rapidly developed. Up to the present time this industry hardly uses any methods except those established by us. The treatment of the minerals and the fractional crystallizations are still performed in the same way, as I did it in my laboratory, even if the material means are increased. As for the radium prepared by me out of the ore we managed to obtain in the first years of our work, I have given it all to my laboratory. The price of radium is very high since it is found in minerals in very small quantities, and the profits of its manufacture have been great, as this substance is used to cure a number of diseases. So it is a fortune which we have sacrificed in renouncing the exploitation of our discovery, a fortune that could, after us, have gone to our children. But what is even more to be considered is the objection of many of our friends, who have argued, not without reason, that if we had guaranteed our rights, we could have had the financial means of founding a satisfactory Institute of Radium, without experiencing any of the difficulties that have been such a handicap to both of us, and are still a handicap to me. Yet, I still believe that we have done right. Humanity, surely, needs practical men who make the best of their work for the sake of their own interests, without forgetting the general interest. But it also needs dreamers, for whom the unselfish following of a purpose is so imperative that it becomes impossible for them to devote much attention to their own material benefit. No doubt it could be said that these idealists do not deserve riches since they do not have the desire for them. It seems, however, that a society well organized ought to assure to these workers the means for efficient labor, in a life from which material care is excluded so that this life may be freely devoted to the service of scientific research. CHAPTER IV A VISIT TO AMERICA My beautiful voyage to the United States of America resulted, as is known, from the generous initiative of an American woman, Mrs. Meloney, editor of an important magazine, the _Delineator_, who, having planned the gift of a gramme of radium to me by her countrywomen, succeeded in a few months in bringing this plan to execution, and asked me to come over and receive the gift personally.